Computer systems are currently in wide use. Some such computer systems enable a user to provide data entry in the form of a string of characters. Some data that is entered can be segmented data, meaning that the data contains multiple different segments that are provided according to a structured format. One example format is a set of discrete values, each of which is a string.
For instance, some computer systems include business systems. Business systems can include customer relations management (CRM) systems, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, line-of-business (LOB) systems, among others. These systems often have business data records which correspond to items in the business system. For instance, a record may correspond to a customer account, a vendor account, a product, or a wide variety of other things.
Each of the items may be represented by a number. For instance, a customer account may be identified by an account number. A vendor account may be identified by a vendor account number. A product may be identified by a product number, etc.
The numbers are often segmented to indicate different variations. For instance, a customer account number may have a main account segment that identifies the customer in general. It may also have a division account segment that identifies a particular division of the customer, a business unit account segment that identifies a particular business unit, a project segment that identifies a particular project, etc. The same can be true of other segmented information that can be entered. This type of information is referred to as segmented data.
When a business system receives an incoming string that is expected to be in a segmented data format, it often parses the incoming string to identify the individual segments, and segment values. One way of doing this is to separate the string based upon recognized separators that are included in the string and to treat groups of characters between separators as a discrete segment value. One example of a separator is a hyphen. However, this is only one example and computer system often identify a wide variety of different types of characters as separators.
Some computer systems also allow segment values to include a separator character. For instance, where a computer system recognizes a hyphen as a separator, the computer system may also allow a user to include the hyphen within a segment, as part of the segment value.
The discussion above is merely provided for general background information and is not intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.